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Monthly Archives: April 2014

“Anna! Will this train go to Avadi?” an unmistakable southern Tamil accent caressed my ears. I was standing in platform number 14 of Chennai Central Suburban railway station. I nodded to him. He walked and got in the train with the relief. With number of trains moved to different stations which do not cover Avadi, I could understand his predicament. Been there, Done that! I said to myself. I could be that boy to some other person when I came to Chennai for the first time. Then on Chennai became inseparable part of me.

It took me quite some time to adjust to Chennai. All I knew in Chennai, when I came here was Ranganathan Street and Egmore Railway station. Tirunelveli was not this complicated, I would think. May be because I grew up there. I know the lanes and narrow spaces like back of my hand. Chennai was too big for me. I constantly felt this big city would swallow me. I felt like an ant, insignificant little thing pacing here and there with no apparent purpose. One thing that struck me very hard was the mixture of unpredictability and purpose this city had.

I avoided taking buses, as the same number buses charged different changes from one way to other. I am yet to master the trick of identifying the cost of travel by the color of the board in a bus. When I was struggling to get a job and had limited change in my pockets to spend, trains were the best way to travel. Slowly the city started to make me comfortable. The unknown places were no longer unknown. It was easy to talk to the locals and they were helpful. Do you want to know where to get used books? Where to buy used gym equipment? Where to by bar bells and dumbbells? All you had to do is ask. And that I did.

The city changed in front of my eyes but not so visibly. I am sad as they take down some of the buildings and thankful for taking down some of the buildings. Entire stretch of Vadapalani is brought to dust for the Metro train construction. It was not the same place, where i had to foot board every morning till Velachery for work. I wonder how Nelson Manikkam Road still caters the ever growing number of cars and bikes? There used to be much lesser number of vehicles.

Last year, by a summer morning, I went to Adyar with good friend Clement Williams. We saw the sunrise from Elphinstone Bridge, Adyar and then proceeded to Broken Bridge. While coming back to Anna Nagar, he kind of gave me a guided tour about that part of the city. Though I am a Chennai resident for like 9 years, I was amazed and also little ashamed that, that part of the city was completely alien to me. Most importantly Clement never laughed at my silly questions. It is a blessing to have such friends.

I got used to the usual scenes of the city. The urgency and the rush towards the exit of Central Suburban station is nothing new to me now. Just that, I have decided not to take part of it. Now a walk from Mylapore tank to Santhome in a lazy Sunday evening with friends is something I got used to. The mall securities and store people smile at me in most of the places. I love Chennai. For a blogging challenge, I wrote a post called “Oor Pasam” which means, the affection towards your city, one of my friends asked why I chose to write about Tirunleveli and not Chennai. I had no answer. I could go on and on about both the places.

Tirunleveli is like mother. Whenever I go there, she will feed me like there is no tomorrow and give me the pleasant and so good experiences which only nostalgia and innocence can give you. Chennai is more like a girl friend, who seduces me day in a day out. She takes care of herself and appears new everyday. She is never boring. After a steady relationship of 9 years now, I can say I am ready for a future with her. I cannot even think of some other city now.

That is why I struck very hard when two of my friends said that they are moving out of the city. One for his career advancement and other for her higher studies. They both are really close to me. I rarely say this to people. But I felt a sudden mood shift when they broke the news to me. The offers they got were too good to refuse. And of course, I want the best for my friends. But when I come to think of it a part of the worry was about how could they leave Chennai? What is not here? Will they be safe in the new city? That is what Chennai did to me. I came here as an immigrant. Now when my friends decide to move on to a different place, it feels as though some cousin leaving MY house forever.

There were lot of memories associated with Chennai. But the memory of four people cramped in an auto, which a girl argued to be run on meter, laughing about silly things and roaming around a mall or road without any intention of buying anything will remain with me forever. I will miss them. But when they come back, Chennai and me will be there to welcome them. We would have just become older and awesome.

It all started with one email sent by Deepa Pillai of Media Moments. They had organized a party in Pizza corner, who make the cheesiest pizza in town. The event was scheduled on Saturday 29th March in their Virugambakkam outlet. I had asked whether the famous Chennai bloggers would be able to come to the event to make it spicier, and few of them agreed. Since it was Saturday few of the bloggers were working. I would be great if such events were planned on Sundays. I understood the reason once I was there in the outlet.

Many thanks to Clement Williams, who picked up Mahesh and me from Anna nagar. We picked up two other bloggers along the way and reached the venue fifteen minutes after the scheduled time. The bloggers were already there and it was nice to see few familiar faces and few faces behind the blogs I follow. The first set of bloggers were already inside the kitchen and they were trying their hands in making pizza.

I sneaked in the kitchen in the pretext of clicking pictures. The chef was very patient while he explained how to make dough and let the bloggers practiced it. Harikrishna Raguraman and Gopal had almost finished the preparation when I sneaked in. Different people had different questions and everything was answered promptly and politely. I didn’t try to get into the cooking part, because even when I boil water, it comes out tasteless. But the others were having so much fun. It was like they were creating a piece of art and they couldn’t wait to see the end result.

The spiciest and yummy pizza was made by Sashi. We named it Punjabi style pizza. It had typical Indian taste to it. Uma Srini and Gopal tried cone shaped thing filled with cheese and they were successful in it. Harikrishna and Gopal’s pizza was the first to come out of the oven and it disappeared in seconds. The guys were proud and also bit shy when the ladies complimented their cooking. Folks! Your wives are so lucky. Not only that you cook so well, you clean the plate without wasting any food. What more compliment than a girl get than that. Karthick Pasupathy and myself tried unique combination of chicken and mutton pizza. It came out really well. But by the time the third pizza came out of the oven, most of us were full.

The staff were pleasant and courteous. There were totally 7 people to take order, serve as well as prepare pizzas. And at one point of time we were more than 12 people inside the kitchen which would accommodate only 7 people. But still no one complained, the smile didn’t go away from their face even for a second. And also the cooking space was well planned and it really helped to serve their customer efficiently.

If it would make you feel any better, Pizza corner store their vegetarian and non-vegetarian ingredients separately. Even the vessels used were different. So if you are a vegetarian and love pizzas, you dont have to hesitate to take a bite in Pizza corner. They let our health conscious friend to have pasta, instead of pizza. There were some fun activities planned like folding the pizza boxes. Subramaniam Thirunavukkarasu from Chennai bloggers club won the prize.

After the customary group snap and pulling legs and laughing our hearts out, we bid adieu to Pizza corner. It was a weekend well spent. The only problem I faced was I was not able to walk after downing all those pizzas with coke.

P.S. Just to intimidate fellow bloggers. After the pizza meet, I went to Sanjeeta Kumar’s home to have a look at her home studio. You have to see it to believe the cutlery collection she had collected over years. It was of different age, size and from all parts of India. The studio was simple but effective. You should follow her Facebook page to know what I am talking about. And the most important part is, she had prepared her special yummilicious egg-less brownies for me. Since I couldn’t eat then, she packed it for me. And she prepares those brownies with some magic potion. The moment I opened the box at my house, it disappeared immediately.